Four grown kids, five delightful grandchildren, constant, long-time partner. A retired academic, I'm adapting to life in a Vancouver condo after decades in a waterfront home on a very small (Canadian) West Coast island. Keen to discover what new priorities emerge, what interests persist, in this urban life after 60!

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Friday, March 29, 2013

Waiting, on Easter Weekend

It feels so odd, alienating, to be here, at home, on the island, while my mother only occasionally achieves consciousness, breathing through her mouth in a deep sleep in a hospice bed across the Strait. I check, compulsively, half-hourly, the calendar my siblings enter their notes in, an online calendar my brother-in-law set up weeks ago to ensure round-the-clock care and company for "Granny." I know what news I'm waiting for, even while I absorb all the details of visits and hands held and fleeting smiles, sponge baths, and breakthrough medication, and music played. A full, strange, waitfulness, all my siblings and their spouses and the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren all bound in a Limbo whose release will surely bring grief of a different flavour along with, admittedly, relief.

On Wednesday afternoon, I went back for one more bedside visit, even though I knew Mom was no longer drinking, had not eaten for days, had only come to consciousness a few times and then only into confusion. Still, I gathered my daughter and wee Harriet with her four-month brilliance in the smiling department. As soon as we got in the room, I knew I'd made a mistake. Yellow from liver failure, lying on her back with her mouth slightly open, I realized her Granny might pose an alarming sight for our baby girl. And it seemed beyond obvious that Mom would not benefit from this visit: we couldn't wake her to let her know we were there; she simply would not be roused.

But before I gave up and herded us back to the car for a sombre ride home, I took my little granddaughter and hovered her over Granny's sleeping form, lowered her face close to her great-grandmother's. Nothing, I thought at first, but I kept telling Mom who was here to see her, and I moved Harriet's little hands to stroke her Granny's. Mom's eyes flickered just a bit. Then the muscles around her mouth moved her lips into a searching, nuzzling position, and she shifted with her neck, almost imperceptibly. I reached Harriet closer and Mom clearly kissed, then smiled before sinking back down into sleep.

Next, in what must have been a heroic effort, she brought herself all the way back up, opening her eyes to signal that she wanted more baby. She was clearly disappointed that I'd shifted my baby bundle away. This time I handed Harriet to my daughter, her mom, and let Megan do the honours. Astonishingly, Mom managed her clearest words (her only words?) of the day. They may, in fact, be the last clearly articulated words of my mother's life: "A beautiful baby." And she looked directly and deeply at Megan, and repeated, "You have a beautiful baby."

As my husband has always said, my mom is wonderful with little ones.

I'm consoling myself with that precious memory today, in the sunshine, far from the room my sister sits in now, holding Mom's hand. Our oldest daughter arrives soon with 4-year-old Nola, and we have Easter candies to strew about the garden for a hunt Sunday morning. I'm not denying or ignoring the impending loss, but rather, I suppose, I'm beginning to imagine how I'll cope with it, how I'll move into my mother's legacy. All the beautiful babies. All of us. . . Life, from death. Good Friday to Easter Sunday. Waiting. . .

What a beautiful piece of writing and what a lovely experience to have had with your mum. It's such a difficult time for everyone. Brought back memories of my father's final days in hospice care. Thinking of you and your family. Your writing resonates with many

Okay, I'm crying now. I usually just hate to cry, and will do nearly anything to avoid it, but in this case, I don't mind. I do hope, fervently, that when my own time comes, I have the sort of family near me that your mother has. And I thank you, deeply, for sharing this solemn, joyous story.

Dear Mater, Your writing is powerful and elegiac, I am glad that you bring such complex and heartfelt topics onto the Web, they enrich and inspire your readers, as amply testified by the comments above. What a blessing your mum passed down to your daughter and her daughter, and I suspect blessing was passed up the chain too, there is a special Grace about the newly born. I am so glad glad that your dear mother seems to be experiencing a 'good death', that sounds rather blunt, but truly, it is I think more rare and precious than we tend to realise: pain managed, never alone, as physically comfortable as possible, personal dignity fully respected. It is surely a comfort to her and those around her and all credit to your family for taking the communal decision to mover her to hospice and to the hospice itself for all their, often unsung, great work. Before I had children I was trained as a volunteer who sat with those in hospice who had no one to be with them at the end and it was always a privilege, the close of our mortal journey is just as important as the beginning of it, hence it so very much deserves to be written about and thought about openly. Hope you and yours are experiencing a peaceful Easter of joys as well as sadness, Hester

It was, truly, a good death. Both my father's, earlier, and my mother's deaths have made me think I would someday like to take on the hospice volunteer training program -- it's a privilege to be so close to that experience and given our society's seeming reliance on blinkers against the sad, many miss out on its richness. I hope you and your little ones enjoyed all of Easter's wonders today. Thank you again for your thoughtful comments.

You write so beautifully about the hard stuff. That feeling of surreality, I remember it well and it's so disorienting. Your wonderful family must be such a comfort, not only to your Mom, but to you as well. I hope your Mom's transition is a peaceful one, and that you all find peace and joy in your memories of her.

I'd love to hear your response to my post. Agree, disagree, even go off on a tangent, I love to know you're out there, readers. Let's chat, shall we? I apologize, though, for the temporary necessity of the Word Verification -- spam comments have been tiresomely numerous lately, and I'm hoping to break that pattern.

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Wisdom to live by and Other Clever Quotations

Events are not changeable at their climax, not through virtue and resolve, but only in their strictly ordinary, habitual course through reason and practice.Walter Benjamin, "The Author as Producer," Address delivered at the Institute for the Study of Fascism, Paris, on 27 April 1934

Coherence is born of random abundance. Kim Stafford in The Muses Among UsThe world is so full of a number of thingsI'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.Robert Louis Stevenson, A Child's Garden of Verses

Bourgeois heroism: the acrobatics of being in so many places practically at once, and doing so many amazing things in one day, and then conversing over dinner with unflagging energy.

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